NRC: Lessen nuclear plant exemptions

Christine Legere @ChrisLegereCCT

Friday

Feb 9, 2018 at 7:05 AMFeb 9, 2018 at 7:05 AM

PLYMOUTH — Federal regulators took another step toward streamlining rules for decommissioning nuclear reactors this week, with staff at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission publishing its 180-page analysis of areas up for amendment.

One of the goals of these changes, expected to be finalized in 2019, is to cut down on the large number of exemptions and amendments that owners of decommissioning reactors seek.

“For decommissioning reactors, the number of potential accidents is fewer and risks of radiological releases are reduced when compared to an operating reactor,” the staff report states. “Therefore, decommissioning licensees request certain amendments to their licenses and certain exemptions from the NRC’s operating regulations that reflect this reduction in risk.”

The five reactors undergoing decommissioning submitted 49 requests for exemptions and license amendments to date. Of those, 26 were from Entergy Corp., owner of the permanently shut-down Vermont Yankee plant.

Requests from licensees have ranged from the elimination of the 10-mile emergency planning zones surrounding plants to reductions in required liability insurance for off-site problems, a shrinking of security staff and the ability to dip into the decommissioning trust funds for expenses beyond dismantling of the plant.

A large number of those license amendments and exemptions have been granted.

The NRC staff found the regulations for decommissioning could be “updated or clarified to be more consistent with, or more appropriately reflect, the requirements necessary to maintain reasonable assurance of adequate protection of public health and safety and the common defense and security at a decommissioning power reactor,” according to the report.

A local Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station opponent strongly disagrees with the streamlining effort. “The NRC appears eager to further chip away decommissioning requirements that are already too lenient,” said Mary Lampert, president of Pilgrim Watch.

The emergency planning zones for operating reactors include a 10-mile radius around the plants — a distance Cape legislators have unsuccessfully been trying to expand for several years.

Many plants, including Vermont Yankee, have received exemptions from the 10-mile planning zone requirements a little over a year after shutting down, shrinking the radius to their property lines.

A cost analysis of the changed decommissioning regulations, included in the staff report, concludes recommended changes will be overall “cost beneficial to the nuclear industry, government and society.”

Diane Turco, president of the Cape Downwinders, expressed outrage over the proposed changes, particularly the tweak that would automatically shrink the emergency planning zone around a reactor after the radioactive fuel rods have been removed from the reactor and sit in the spent fuel pool for several months.

Pilgrim, which has $895 million in its trust fund, is set to permanently shut down by June 1, 2019.

“The recommendations fly in the face of public input and security,” Turco said. ”A spent fuel pool fire (at Pilgrim) could potentially contaminate an area from Manhattan to Nova Scotia. These recommendations are rule breaking, not rulemaking.”

As federal regulators head toward approval of the streamlined regulations for decommissioning plants, a Massachusetts Congressman and outspoken Pilgrim critic is among a group of co-sponsors who this week re-introduced federal legislation aimed at improving safety at nuclear plants that are permanently closed down.

The Safe and Secure Decommissioning Act of 2018, introduced by Harris and co-sponsored by those other senators, would prohibit the Nuclear Regulatory Commission from issuing waivers or granting exemptions from compliance with safety and emergency preparedness regulations laid out in the Atomic Energy Act of 1954, until spent fuel from the reactor has been transferred to dry casks.

The Nuclear Plant Decommissioning Act of 2018, introduced by Sanders and co-sponsored by Markey, Harris and Gillibrand, would allow state and local communities to participate in the drafting of decommissioning plans for retiring plants in their areas. The act would also require the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to publicly approve or reject decommissioning plans — a process the agency is currently not required to follow.

Last year Markey introduced the Dry Cask Storage Act, also sponsored by the group of senators, that would require highly radioactive spent fuel to be transferred from the spent fuel pool into dry cask storage within seven years of a licensee presenting its plan to the NRC. The Act provides funding to help reactor licensees implement the plans and it expands the emergency planning zones for non-complying reactors to 50 miles.

“Overcrowded spent nuclear fuel pools like the one at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station are a disaster waiting to happen,” Markey said in a statement on the re-introduction of the bills. “Pilgrim’s spent fuel pool contains nearly four times more radioactive waste than it was originally designed to hold. We need the NRC to post the ‘Danger’ sign outside these fuel pools and ensure dangerous nuclear waste is moved to safer storage before a nuclear disaster occurs.”